Being Alone Hurts, the Pain Can Help You Heal

Although it can scare us a bit to start with, being alone can help us learn a lot about ourselves, focus on our own well-being and grow as people.

Reviewed and approved by the psychologist Bernardo Peña.

Written by Raquel Lemos Rodríguez

Last update: 09 October, 2022

Being alone can be painful. Suddenly, you don’t have anyone around to accompany you on the difficult path you are walking. Why has everyone gone? Why has life left you alone?

Solitude is frowned upon and considered a failure. However, sometimes we have no choice but to experience it, especially when we’ve been through a bad spell. Even if we see it as a great enemy, in reality, it can be one of our greatest blessings. Because being alone hurts but heals.

Being alone will help you heal your wounds

Occasionally, we get lost along the way, we start to be unhappy and the suffering becomes very present in our day-to-day lives. In the long term, this doesn’t disappear and the time comes when we can’t take it anymore.

It doesn’t matter what we’re going through. We tend to think that our problems are outside of us. However, the solution is on the inside.

That’s why experiencing solitude is an excellent opportunity to connect with ourselves again. It helps us to listen to ourselves and to discover how to improve our lives.

So let’s not lament solitude. It’s true that to start with we’ll tend towards victimization, thinking “why me?” or “I don’t deserve this.”

However, this has to come to an end so that we can dedicate time to ourselves, think about who we are, treat ourselves and really love ourselves.

This way we will discover that nobody can solve what we’re going through. Nobody but ourselves.

Solitude invites you to become independent

Being alone is an excellent invitation for all those who suffer from some kind of dependence on others, like dependence on their partner or even other kinds of relationships.

We can’t spend our whole lives leaving our happiness to people who will end up disappointing us and doing us a lot of damage.

It is important that we learn to be responsible and that we realize that being well today doesn’t depend on the emotional state of others, but rather on ourselves.

Only this way will we be able to manage our emotions, have some balance and feel well without always needing to look outside of ourselves.

Because we are the only ones responsible for how we feel, and if we let others take on this power, then we’re getting things really wrong.

We don’t depend on anybody. We’re afraid of solitude, but sometimes it is good to be aware of this. People come and go, they hurt you, others leave scars. However, the person that will never abandon us is within us.

Being alone hurts

Even if we position solitude as an opportunity to heal, it’s true that being alone will hurt a lot. It will tempt you to go back, to return to your comfort zone, but things will not be as easy as before.

This will happen because you have taken a huge step that, although painful, is very necessary. Solitude awaits to offer you the opportunity to mature, to grow, to improve yourself.

Now you know what it means to be responsible for your own happiness, and, wow! It’s not so easy, right? When you put your focus on yourself you begin to see that you do deserve things and you start to feel bad for seeing this as selfish, but this is what you need.

Always being on the lookout to make sure someone doesn’t leave you, to constantly please others, to do things because you think you’ll end up alone if you don’t, is a serious mistake.

You are important and you deserve to think of yourself. It’s time to stop sacrificing so much time thinking about how to be better for others so that they accept you and love you. Leave victimization behind and take the reigns of your own life. You have the power and the will to do it. Don’t waste any more time.